There's a game today? I thought all you guys wanted to talk about was the Cubs' acquisition of Jim Edmonds.

edmonds is a cub. and they can have him. he’ll probably fare better in wrigley than he did in petco park, where he hit .091 (3 hits in 33 trips), but he’s washed up nonetheless. the cardinals moved him so he wouldn’t block their prized cf prospect, colby rasmus; the cubs just acquired him and another castoff, reed johnson, to block the path of their young stud cfer, felix pie. better them than us.

Padres fans weigh in, too. (That post also contains a really frightening photo. Beware!)

Jim Hendry explains the move:

"There is really no negative in it," Hendry said. "You're not giving up players. You're not spending a lot of dollars, so you look at things like that and, hopefully, he'll be able to give us at least a great portion of the Jim Edmonds we all knew and used to fear in a lot of ways."

Well, we'lll see. In the meantime, Bruce Miles reminds us of a confrontation between Edmonds and Carlos Zambrano in July 2004:

Zambrano hit Edmonds with a pitch in the first inning at Wrigley Field. In the fourth, Edmonds hit a homer and admired his drive a little too long for Zambrano's liking.

Zambrano struck out Edmonds in the sixth and did a little finger-wagging. In the eighth, Scott Rolen homered off Zambrano, who then drilled Edmonds and was ejected.

Here's the game in question, July 19, 2004. The Cardinals won 5-4.

Know what amuses me about Cubdom? If Jim Edmonds rips a game-winning home run today, 40,000 fans will develop instant amnesia about why they hate him. They'll jump, scream, dance, bow, shimmy, do the Soulja Boy thing, demand a curtain call, scream louder when he doffs his blue cap, sing "Go Cubs Go" and vanish merrily into a Wrigleyville afternoon while reminding their friends, "Dude, I told you Edmonds was a good pickup."

He's right. Now, on to the actual game today.

Today's Starting Pitchers

R. Dempster Cubs vs. G. Maddux Padres 4-1 W-L 3-3 2.76 ERA 3.60 36 SO 26 23 BB 8 3 HR 5 vs. SD -- vs. Cubs

Jim Edmonds is 10-for-38 lifetime against Greg Maddux with three doubles and two HR. Maddux has thrown pretty well this year, although he had one really bad start vs. Arizona where he gave up nine earned runs. Of the 5 HR he's allowed, three of them were in his first start of the year.

We all love Maddux, but as far as I'm concerned, he can win his next start.

Ryan Dempster has been consistent all year -- going at least six innings in six of his seven starts so far. He still needs to stop walking so many hitters -- averaging more than three walks per start. Brian Giles absolutely kills him -- .406/.487/.750 (13-for-32, 3 doubles, a triple, 2 HR, 10 RBI, 6 BB). Otherwise he handles these guys pretty well, apart from, of all people, Maddux, who is 2-for-5 lifeetime vs. Dempster (a single, a double).

Today's game is on CSN -- no San Diego TV, so Cub fans won't be subjected to the bleatings of the worst announcer in baseball, Matt Vasgersian. For more see the MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday (2007 version)

MLB.com Gameday (2008 version)

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Today's overflow comment thread will post at 2:45 pm CT.

Discuss amongst yourselves.